Mad World
by Missy Jade
Summary: [Stupidverse] Jonathon and Jamie, and a handful of moments from their odd and growingly close relationship, from May '06 to May '07 [JamieJonathon]
1. Chapter 1

_Characters: Jonathon, Jamie; mentions of family members.  
Rating: Mature, later on, just for non-graphic but still rough mentions of child abuse and a kiss between two consenting adult men. If that freaks you out, close this window and just go away, that's all.  
Teaser: Jonathon and Jamie, and a handful of moments from their odd and growingly close relationship— the shooting, and Tad's resulting coma; moving changes, and all of its oddities; a short and bitter glimpse into a Jonathon Christmas; trying to keep Jamie's mind off of the anniversary of Tad's shooting and consecutive coma… and the new things it accidentally brings about.  
AN: A few notes about this one, and to answer a few questions some people might have—as I said in one update of 'Stupid,' there are a few things that were changed before the MGB explosion, the moment when the story officially shifts into an alternate universe take on the world of PV. Josh's parentage, a product of stolen eggs instead of an unabortion, was one. Janet's breakdown, and the reason behind it, has been changed slightly, but not by much—it'll be explained later on, when we finally delve more deeply into the David/Amanda aspect of the AU world. The Lily/Jon relationship is one of these things—as in, it never happened. Why? Because it was just too sick to be ignored and instead of giving us an actual storyline behind Jon's recovery, they tried to white-wash his history and used picture-of-innocence Lily to do it. That said, his recovery from the surgery, while not hyper-slow, also wasn't fast, per se. Around early April, he finally started balancing out and, well, things started moving more quickly for him, story-wise. Just wanted to clear a few quick things up. If you look carefully, you'll get some 'Stupid' backstory, as it were -- this one will be four or five short parts, just because my Muse wants me to write them. Take it up with her, heh._

_-_

_All around me are familiar faces  
Worn out places, worn out faces  
Bright and early for their daily races  
Going nowhere, going nowhere  
Their tears are filling up their glasses  
No expression, no expression  
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow  
No tomorrow, no tomorrow_

And I find it kinda funny  
I find it kinda sad  
The dreams in which I'm dying  
Are the best I've ever had  
I find it hard to tell you  
I find it hard to take  
When people run in circles  
It's a very, very mad world mad world

- Gary Jules, 'Mad World'

-

**May, 2006**

-

Jamie didn't have anyone to support him anymore.

Despite everything he had done over the last several years, despite letting parents think their children were dead, despite the fact that they had been at odds since Dixie had walked unsure and trembling back into their lives—despite everything, Tad had been standing by him, even when there had been a dull glint of exhausted disappointment in his father's gaze.

He'd been the only one his father had stood by.

Jamie felt somehow overwhelmingly lonely, and found that he had no words for it.

So he stood around, and tried to look like he was doing something, playing with clipboards and pens and papers, spending a good half-hour babbling to Anita about whether or not the peanuts in the waiting room were safe for human consumption. Anita insisted that they were, and finally gave him a few words of comfort and went back to work, suggesting over her shoulder that he go home and get a few hours of sleep.

He didn't want to sleep, found that he was afraid to.

"You look like a dead man walking."

He jerked, glanced over his shoulders to find Jonathon standing there, studying him with an odd intensity. Jamie stared, guiltily aware of how late it was and how dead on his feet he probably looked, and squirmed a bit, shifting eyes away from the older man and to the clipboard he was playing with, frowning as he stared down at his doodles of Spongebob Squarepants. "I'm not tired."

Jonathon snorted, but shrugged, and Jamie blinked, watching as two bags were neatly deposited in front of him, and he picked up the unmistakable scent of Chinese. "I'm not hungry, either," he managed, reaching up hastily to wipe a sudden dribbling of drool from his bottom lip, and then squirmed more when dark eyes stripped him down and left him to flounder, unhappily aware of how freaking good Jonathon was at telling when somebody was lying.

"I brought you chicken," Jon explained lightly, basically tossing a container towards Jamie to catch with a yelp of surprise, and then dropping the clipboard as a plastic fork went spinning toward his face, possibly to blind him for life. "I'm not hungry," he repeated more sullenly, nearly poking himself in the eye as he ripped open the container and proceeded to cram several large pieces of chicken into his mouth, next words muffled before Jonathon clamped a hand across his mouth with a disgusted glance, avoiding the sudden spray of semi-chewed meat.

"Jesus, James, you're like that little kid who used to follow me around in first grade."

"You had—" Jamie almost choked in his haste to swallow and had to get a fist to his back as his eyes suddenly watered. Coughing, clearing his throat, he chewed more slowly, realizing that if he did that again Jon would take his food—he could see it in sharp dark eyes and the line of irritation wrinkling Jon's forehead. "You went to school?"

"How else do you think I got out of there a few hours a day?"

It made sense, even if it went against everything Jamie had been building up in the back of his brain over the last months—Jon and Erin locked up in the basement of some dingy house and while he knew that the dingy part of it was right, and it explained Jon's sometimes disturbing paranoia when it came to keeping his otherwise pitiful apartment clean, they had apparently left the dingy house.

Which only brought up more confusing feelings for Jamie, who had happy memories of fat red crayons and clean lined papers when he looked back at his school years. His nightmares had consisted of clowns and rabbits that had gotten sick of having their feet cut off, and had come back for revenge—most of the rabbit revenge scenarios had ended up with him huddled up in bed with his mother, sometimes calling his father to warn him about the long-eared fiends out for blood, and to watch out for Dixie and JR, because the twitchy-nosed things would surely go after them, too.

Jon was staring at him, looking faintly uncomfortable, and he realized with a blink that he had been staring blankly long enough to unnerve the older man and very quickly looked down, shoving more food into his mouth and mumbling something as he kicked absently at the floor, feeling guilty for staring.

He always felt guilty for staring.

"How is he?"

He chewed for a moment, hesitating before finally answering quietly, feeling both guilty and suddenly lonely again, something that had abated in the last few moments. "They're worried about his blood loss, and a lot of them are talking about… they're worried that he might have a stroke—a stroke or something." Another jab into a hunk of chicken and he chewed the suddenly tasteless stuff with a grimace, aware of too-intelligent eyes studying him intently.

"I'm sure he'll be fine—"

"Yeah, right—"

A heavy silence, oddly harsh and Jamie poked at his broccoli and beef, unhappily impressed that Jonathon had remembered his favorites. But then, his father was close to death, so he couldn't help but suspect that the dedication stemmed from awkward pity, which was usually what he felt in dealing with Jonathon—it was odd to feel it coming from the other side of things.

"I was shot, and then I had a cave collapse on top of me… trust me, he'll be fine—"

"Not everyone's you."

"That's a good thing."

Jamie didn't know what to say, and finally settled for saying nothing at all, happy that most everybody had finally left—Opal escorted away by Palmer, and Dixie, to everyone's great horror, dragged off by Derek. Grandpa had left soon after, intending to get her out but Jamie hadn't heard from him since, which made him even more nervous about it all.

Everything was wrong, and he had the unhappy feeling it would be getting worse.


	2. Chapter 2

**August, 2006**

-

Jonathon didn't have that much stuff.

He wasn't sure why it was disturbing, but it was.

Jonathon needed a place to stay and, because he was lonely, unbearably so, Jamie was letting him stay for a few weeks. JR was busy these days, and while Maggie was back in town, she wasn't being very receptive—to his great exhaustion, she seemed to more unforgiving of his role in keeping Miranda from Bianca than she did that he was beginning to actually call Jonathon Lavery a friend.

Jonathon, he had quickly found, was difficult to deal with at times—he was like some emotional roller coaster, and while the medications helped him stay steady enough to function sufficiently at work, it wasn't by much. He'd been on so many medications, over the years, that they were having difficulties finding the right mix for him that would keep going but not enough to push him to his breaking points, physically speaking.

They had yet to succeed.

One second, the other man could be quietly still and relaxed, almost to a disturbing point with blank eyes and shallow breathing, and the next he would rush into whatever movement he could find, muttering under his breath. If Jamie was honest, he would admit that he had no real idea why he was letting the murdering abuser into his apartment.

But he was.

His mother had at first accused him of something like a morbid worship, and while she had been right all along with his feelings for Babe, it was as far from that as anything he'd ever felt. He wondered if, maybe, it had something to do with JR, or something at least related to JR—that was what his instincts were telling him, and he was finally learning to trust those.

It had only taken a kidnapping rap and a handful of stupid actions though, so that wasn't too bad, right?

Oh, and the complete and total destruction of his family, too.

"You look like you're trying to understand something."

He paused in his thinking, glanced up from his sightless gazing of his lunch to where Jonathon was standing, fiddling with his Cuban sandwich, playing with his the way he did with all of his food. There was probably a story behind it, like there was a story behind everything that Jonathon seemed to do without thinking. He flipped the meat around, scraped off the mayonnaise and mustard and put on his own, and then sliced it repeatedly.

It probably had some meaning for him, and Jamie was grateful he didn't know it—too many of Jonathon's unconscious meanings had bad history behind them, and while Jamie cared about Jonathon— Wait, was cared even the right word? Or was he just trying to be there for Jonathon the way he hadn't been there for JR?— he found that, more often than not, he didn't want to know about them.

"I'm thinking," he admitted and Jon smirked, looking very pleased with himself as he threw away old pickles and took new ones out of the fridge, which he had spent the night before organizing. Who organized their fridge, though, right? "You always get that look on your face when you think, that stupid one."

"Which look?"

"The one you always have on your face."

Jamie gave him a dirty look, noticing how Jonathon looked even more pleased with himself, and shook his head, finally taking a bite of his Cuban, letting Jon continue to play with his. "Why do you even buy a sandwich anyway? All you do is throw everything on it away and start over again. It's a waste of money."

Dark eyes pinned him, studied him before Jon narrowed his eyes, as if he had just come to some quiet decision about the younger man. He'd seen the look before, and Jamie had found that it wasn't as disquieting as it probably should have been. He didn't speak until he had finished his fiddling and put the stuff away and when he did speak, his voice was flatter than usual, which wasn't actually all that unusual with Jonathon.

"I'm working on it." This so stated, he stared down at the carefully constructed sandwich, staring at it as he tugged at the corner of one thumbnail, making Jamie wince slightly. By the time he finally started eating, Jamie was licking his fingers clean and digging through the paper bag for any morsels left, frowning when he found none and then glaring at the fridge, wondering if he should brave Jonathon's cleaning tics--tics for a chance at finding something else.

He had come for a few weeks, how was it now months later?

Loneliness, that had to be it, he decided as he strapped courage to his spine and slunk towards the fridge, scowling at the way Jon shot him a warning glance not to screw anything inside up, and purposely not looking as Jon took his pills, swallowing them dry the way he did when he forgot to drink something with them.

Jamie had never been good with taking pills, not when he wasn't curious about them. He could clearly remember the ordeals he had put his dad and Dixie through when his mother had been away for business when he had the flu, and how many pills he had destroyed before Dixie had finally managed to coax the stupid thing down his throat while his father held him wrapped up in a blanket, dodging small fists and wire-bound teeth.

He couldn't quite comprehend how anyone could swallow those things dry.

By the time Jonathon finished his food, Jamie had devoured the rest of the Chinese food from three days before and was working on the last pitiful remains of the Cherry Garcia, studiously ignoring the hard stare that was now focused on him. "Did you get your eating habits from the pig?"

It took a moment to get the reason behind the taunting and, flipping Jon off with his spoon, he mumbled, "Babe's not a pig—"

"Isn't she?"

"Why the hell do you hate her so much?"

"Have you forgotten what the hell that bitch did to my sister?"

Apparently, he realized with an inward cringe, remembering how hard Erin had hit the ground when tackled by the blonde, yelping in surprise at the sudden vicious attack for no reason that any of the family had been able to figure out. According to the witnesses, Stuart among them, JR and Erin had just been shopping for the dresser that Erin wanted for her guest room.

And then, down went Erin, with Babe on her like white on rice.

What did that mean, anyway?

Rice wasn't even naturally white—

"You're thinking again, I can tell."

Jamie flipped him off with the spoon again, glaring as best as he could with the brain freeze sinking in.


	3. Chapter 3

**December 2006**

-

Intriguing, that it could be the murderer that could drive him to reach his breaking point with her.

Banging a fist against the door, he waited for a heartbeat and then slammed his fist down harder, making the door shudder with the force, and then threw his shoulder against the door, almost falling flat on his face when Babe flung it open, staring at him with large overly innocent eyes. He caught himself quickly though, in a rare moment of grace, and pushed past her.

He had no idea where she had gotten this last surge of cash, and frankly, he didn't want to know.

"If Little A—"

"JR's son is fine," he snapped, and she frowned, apparently picking up on something and shifting, becoming a bit more edged in the way she stared at him, reaching up to play with a few strands of blonde hair. Once, just the sight of it would have undone him, but not anymore; more than that, he was too downright pissed off to notice anything other than how frustratingly smug she looked.

"Then why are—"

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

The look she gave him only made his already high blood-pressure skyrocket even further, stunned and then exhaustedly enraged that she could brush it off when he already saw the truth in her eyes, a wary nervousness tingeing it as she realized just how upset he really was. "Jamie—"

"A smart woman does not corner a person like Jonathon Lavery and accuse him of trying to hurt an innocent child."

"He's capable of it—"

"And so are we," he half-shouted, startling himself more than he did her, and hesitating for a heartbeat before the anger came rushing back. "At least he runs around trying to make himself a better person; all we can do is bitch and moan about how we can't be forgiven." He stopped, completely this time, dazed into a temporary silence—was that it? Was that how he felt about everything?

"I paid for what I did—"

"David fucking Hayward paid more than you did!"

She slapped him suddenly, hard, and he found he didn't care, not now that he suddenly had his feet under him somehow, finding himself sure of something for the first time since he'd set his eyes on her on that weird-ass beach years before, where what he had wanted and what he needed had separated so badly he didn't know how to make them connect again, even faintly. "How dare you!"

He brushed off her next attempt to slap him, pushing her slightly and snorting in disgust when she kept going until she smacked against her table, glaring up at him with almost comically self-righteous anger, tears filling her eyes and lip trembling slightly and he shook his head in irritation, rubbing his forehead, not sure whether he was angry at her or angry at himself for all this. "I'm doing this for my son, Jamie," she whispered and he snorted outright, almost a laugh, watching her spin herself into a different direction, deciding to throw herself down on the tracks for his pity. "I'm doing this to protect him."

"You don't even realize you're doing it, do you?"

A baffled look as she wiped at her eyes and he shook his head, not sure whether to laugh or cry at her whirlwind of emotions, one shifting into another in order to try to get herself out of trouble. "I don't know what you're talking about," she whispered raggedly, more roughly and he exhaled harshly, realizing with sudden clarity that it was like talking to a really stupid brick wall. "I mean, you don't even realize what you're doing, do you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about—"

"And that's the problem, isn't it?" Confusion, as she stared at him and he jerked his chin at the ring she had refused to give back to JR, insisting even as she was being dragged out of the mansion that she and JR would find each other again. "You're not even cruel, you're just stupid and selfish, and everybody else pays for it."

"Jamie—"

"You stay the Hell away from Jonathon," he ground out and she snapped her mouth shut, something apparently sinking in, because her eyes narrowed and the tears suddenly stopped. "The next time I find out that your way of taking care of my nephew is to attack Jonathon, and you're going to pay for it—"

"What are you—"

"If I have to, I'll go running to my mommy for help," he added, amused suddenly at the imagery he presented to himself, a tiny form of himself running into his mother's lap and insisting that she help him make Babe pay for being mean to somebody he cared about. "And she'd do it, you know that. Even if she didn't support Jonathon's therapy, you and I both know she'd go after you in about two seconds, probably stopping only long enough to know that she wouldn't get in trouble for it."

Babe was stupid, but she wasn't an idiot and she watched him go with angry eyes and clenched fists, glaring after him with that self-righteous anger he had clung to so often, used to destroy the people he loved, anger he couldn't summon anymore even if he wanted to, even when he wished he could to try to defend his actions.

Jonathon had taken his self-righteousness, and he wasn't completely sure how he felt about that.

-

Jonathon didn't like Babe—there were times when she downright frightened him, with her certainty that everything that she did was right and pure and that she could do no wrong. Or, maybe, he was just jealous of that quality, jealous of how she could find no fault in herself even when somebody was holding her head and forcing her to look.

She was somebody who was good at blinding herself when she needed to, of ignoring what she didn't like.

He wished he had that talent, that he could ignore what he didn't like, that he could brush it away like it was nothing. But he didn't, and he hated that perhaps more than anything else. Everything he saw, everything he touched left its mark on him, scarred him despite his best attempts to not let it.

Even the good moments were bitter.

"I'll pull you back from the edge, Jonathon, but I'm not letting you take me over with you."

Jonathon tapped his fingers against the bottle, twisting slightly to look around at Jamie, really study him, eyes somehow even sharper than normal and Jamie squirmed under the scrutiny, looking uncomfortable. Picking at the label with one thumbnail, he shook his head with slight amusement, cocking an eyebrow. "You're capable of having really impressive moments when you stop trying, James."

"I am?"

Well, that moment was gone, Jonathon decided, turning back to the ledge, peering over at the movement far below, quiet celebrations that he couldn't understand and was afraid to even try to. Swallowing, he finally exhaled, wincing at how loud the noise seemed to be in the dim silence. "What did she say anyway?"

"I already told you," he replied flatly, tightening his hold on everything as he held the bottle to his forehead, trying to ease the building pressure there. Aware of the fact that Jamie was still staring at him, he glanced back again, managing a smirk and cringing inwardly when it failed to make the younger man relax.

"She said something else, didn't she?"

"She didn't—"

"Yes, she did, I can tell— Jon, tell me—"

"Aren't you supposed to be at the big Martin family gathering?"

He listened to the crunch of gravel, Jamie's telltale hang-dog shuffle before he was at his side, hovering for a moment before he crouched, peering over the edge with innocently large eyes that made Jonathon grin slightly, a rare grin that felt odd and comfortable at the same time. "How high are we anyway?"

"High enough," Jonathon answered and Jamie gave him a look that was slightly worried and slightly annoyed and all Jamie and Jonathon was grateful for it. Everybody felt damaged, even in this town and even the happiest people felt tragic, whether it was JR with his bitter hurt or Kendall with her fragile eyes, becoming more fragile every time Ryan roped him into a visit.

Jamie wasn't damaged, though; he was a bit scuffed around the edges, in a hopeful kind of way, and it was a refreshing difference.

"I thought your mother wanted you over there."

"I thought Ryan wanted you to come over."

Ah, the stubbornness of James Martin.

"I'm not in the mood."

"Well, neither am I."

The wounded quality was grating and, feeling puppy-eyes on him, he finally climbed off the edge and back onto the roof completely, staggering before his balance returned and he took a seat on the gravel, sprawl-legged as he cradled the bottle against his chest. When Jamie plopped down beside him, he winced in amusement, catching him by the jacket when he would have toppled backward.

"Your grace astounds me, James."

"That's what JR always says."

He snorted, and took another sip, holding it before swallowing it down slowly, exhaling softly as he drummed fingers against the glass, clinging to the cold in the air and the scuffed young man beside, who didn't get scarred with everything he brushed against in his life and who stared at him in quiet sympathy without pissing him off, which was more than he could say for every person he had ever met except for Erin.

"You know, if you ever want to talk—"

"Do me a favor, and give me some quiet, James."

And he got what he asked for, Jamie laying back with a long lazy sigh that made him snort in amusement, shaking his head in his best attempt not to enjoy the lack of damage in the relaxation so apparent. Like always, though, the amusement didn't last, was swept away in the teary-eyed blonde's comment, the only one that had really cut at him, but had cut deep.

_"Just because your mommy didn't love you doesn't give you a right to stick yourself in my son's life."_

Didn't matter, though—

_"Nothing happened, Jonny, you sound crazy—"_

—because nothing had happened, anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

**May 2007**

-

"Aren't we breaking a law right now?"

Jonathon flashed him a savage grin, wolf like, white teeth flashing in the dim moonlight and cocked one eyebrow. "We've both broken laws, James—kidnapping and drugging counts as breaking a law, right?" At Jamie's rather dirty look, he grinned even more broadly, a bit of a smirk slipping into view. "You drugged that Buchanan nanny, right?"

"Shut up."

"You started it."

"Shut up!"

"God, you're a chicken." Jamie shifted a few times fearfully, looking around as if he expected Derek Frye to show up with his entire brigade of Keystone cops in the rear, and Jon smirked a bit more, leaning more weight against the crowbar carefully and finally having the pleasure of hearing the window slide open. "And I'm good at what I do."

"You're a smart ass."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"Isn't it?"

"Aw, there are lots worse things than being a smart ass, right, baby-napper?"

"What don't you understand about 'shut up'?"

"I'm a Lavery, James—orders don't work on me."

Jamie was hard-pressed to disagree or agree with that since, one, Jonathon cleanly admitted it often and fearlessly and, two, compared to his brother, he was the most loyal order-follower in the world. Finally, scowling, he settled for peering into the cracked window, barely making out the shapes of… something. "Is this some evil scheme or something, like, to abandon me lost and alone in the woods without any bread crumbs?"

"Bread crumbs?"

"Hansel and Gretel?"

Jonathon just stared back, confused, and he winced, shaking his head and looking back at the building he was peering into. "It's just a fairy tale, my mom used to read it to me when I was sick." Brushing off the slightly guilty tone in the younger man's voice, refusing to let either of them dwell on less than pleasant things, Jon brushed his hands absently across his leather jacket, grinning at him again. "Your mother told you stories about bread crumbs?"

"Shut up."

"Why don't you shut up and get your ass in there."

"I hate you."

"The day you hate me is the day you stop wearing the Glasses of Smart!"

Jamie shot him his most lethal glare, receiving only a smug grin in response and, muttering darkly about how he really did need the glasses to help his vision, he pulled himself up and slowly through the window, trying his best to set both feet down with the noiseless grace that everybody—and everybody meant JR and Jonathon, if he was honest—seemed to possess.

It was a miserable failure.

Something caught on a nail and he jerked forward, crashing to the ground with a strangled yell of surprise, cracking his shoulder on something as he went down, landing in a sprawl of aching joints and twisted body parts. "James, really—" It was a scoff, slightly mocking but also worried and hands grabbed at his shoulders, apparently checking that he had both arms before Jonathon stepped back again and the window was slid shut, and then reopened as if Jon had thought better of it. "Only you could fall five feet like that."

"I'm in pain, you know."

"You're always in pain."

Sighing, groaning, Jamie slowly got to his feet, looking around as his eyes ever so slowly adjusted to the moonlight filtering in through the opened window, wrinkling his nose. When his father had fallen into the coma, and the odds of his recovery had shrunk to nearly nothing, Aidan had made the decision to move what was left of the private eye business to where he could start over again, and headed back to England.

Nobody seemed to realize he was missing, actually.

When Jonathon flicked on his flashlight, he let out a startled yelp, shielding his eyes as he fell back again. "Why the fuck do you hate me so much?" He got a laugh in answer, one of Jonathon's rare and real laughs, untainted by his existence both before and after coming to Pine Valley. "I don't hate you— I just feel no pity for you." A pause, and then another laugh as a hand grabbed him, spinning him to watch where the light fell. "Besides, if I blind you, you really will need to wear those Glasses of Smart of yours."

"What are we doing here anyway?" he muttered childishly, kicking at a few objects scattered on the floor, half-wishing he had refused to come in the first place. "We're here to keep your mind off your dad." Jamie shot the other man a look, baffled. "You brought me to my dad's old office to get my mind off him?"

"Yeah."

"That makes no sense."

"When have you known me to make sense, James?"

He got no response and smirked slightly, tracing the light across covered furniture and a dusty floor. Somebody had come in at some point, but they hadn't done any big damage that he could see. "What's your first memory?" he asked curiously, only half-aware of the question as he drifted around, pausing to kick around a broken pencil.

"What do you mean?"

Picking up on the way the other male was still standing in his same spot, looking nervous, he rolled his eyes, wondering if Jamie was by any chance afraid of the dark. He'd finally outgrown that particular fear, and he unhappily thanked the cave-in from two years before on that—nightmares of paralyzing blackness changing into the crushing weight of rock, dust filling his lungs with sandpaper harshness.

"I mean, what's the earliest thing you can remember?"

"You really want to know?"

There was a slightly nervous quality there and he grinned absently, kicking the pencil out of the light and into the shadows, following its skittering movements until he lost sight of it. "Come on, James, come on—share with me." He got a dirty look in response as Jamie proceeded to snatch the flashlight away. "Stop making fun of _Golden Girls_, Jon."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"It's a good show."

"Yes, it is," Jon agreed pleasantly, watching Jamie flick the light around the half-empty remains of the office, looking more relaxed now that he had the light. "That said, you are obsessed with them. You watch Lifetime all day long and when you work, you make me tape them. And let's not forget your DVD collection."

"Those are my mom's."

"God, you're a bad liar."

A few moments of silence before: "What did you ask again?"

"Memory, James—which one is your first?"

"Why do you want to know?" Jamie asked suspiciously and Jon rolled his eyes, not having to see his face to know that he had his now infamous expression on there, a stare that looked too much like every other look he had to ever be taken seriously. There was nothing even remotely frightening about Jamie Martin, a refreshing change from every other person that Jonathon had ever known. "Call me curious."

"Uh huh." He sounded highly doubtful, but he seemed looser finally, no longer looking around as if expecting something to leap out at him from the dark. Jonathon, personally, didn't believe in those things—most of the monsters he had known through the years, including himself, spent most of their time blending in, and very few jumped out at you through the dark.

Most, he had also found, got worse when they drank—and again, he was included in that group.

"I think it was my mom."

"You think?"

"I'm twenty-two, Jon—that's twenty-two years of memories."

Jonathon was quickly nearing his thirties; that was nearly thirty years of memories.

And so few good ones.

Biting the inside of his cheek at the sudden way his stomach twisted in his middle, Jon kicked at the floor again, more absently before replying. "So, your first memory isn't your dad?" An absent shrug, Jamie now focused on his little exploration through the office, looking like a kid on a camping trip. "Nope, it's my mom."

"What is it?"

"I told you, it's my mom."

"No—" Suddenly feeling cornered and flustered, Jonathon stopped and then started again, setting his jaw slightly, aware of the slight pain where his teeth had set into his cheek hard enough to leave the faintest taste of blood. "No, I mean— what I meant was, what's the memory?"

Jamie glanced at him, and then shrugged again, nothing raw connected to whatever he had chosen, something Jon desperately wished he could achieve. "We were just playing cards or something, until she would let me out to play with JR—" He paused, smoothing a hand across a dusty desk that had once held picture frames of Dixie, and glossy images and him and JR. "I had to wait an extra hour because she said it was too cold, and that I needed to wait until the sun came up completely."

"It was winter?"

He glanced over his shoulder, found Jon sitting on the stairs that went to the second level of the building, and managed a small and embarrassed grin. "Yeah, and JR went out early with Dixie, but it was still too early for me—or, at least, that's mom said." He sighed, and headed to the staircase, wiping a hand across his face as he dropped down beside Jon, looking oddly uncomfortable. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing."

"Why did you bring me here, anyway?" he asked again, forgetting that he had already asked some time before.

"To make you feel better."

"You brought me to my dad's empty office to make me feel better about his coma?"

If Jon thought it was an odd plan, he didn't show it, shrugging and sighing deeply, eyes on the shadows. "I just—" He stopped abruptly, voice odd, and Jamie looked closer, found that rare but heartbreaking look of quiet confusion on Jon's face. "I just thought you should remember that your father loved you, even if he never wakes up again."

"I know he loves me—"

"Do you?" Jamie jolted slightly, stunned at the force as Jon stood and began to push his knuckles against his forehead, and even as dim as it was, Jamie could see him shaking slightly. "I mean, do you know that he loved you, James?" Jamie opened his mouth but then stopped, realizing that no words would be enough at the moment. "Do you have any idea how lucky you were?"

And Jon stopped, just like that, eyes closing, looking defeated, frustrated and exhausted and Jamie swallowed, watching in uneasy silence as Jonathon dropped back onto the stair he had jumped up from, face buried in his hands. "Jon?" A muffled noise was his answer and he finally settled for laying a hand on Jon's back, offering what comfort Jon would allow himself to take. "I'm beginning to," he added when he could trust his voice and was grateful when Jon nodded, still not looking at him, now gazing once again at the shadows.

"What's the matter?"

It was the second time he had asked, and he didn't mean to disturb the quiet stillness they had settled into, but this time Jon looked at him, staring at him with faintly haunted eyes, twisting his hands in his lap. "I think—" He was quiet again, until Jamie was five heartbeats from shaking him, and then murmured more quietly, "Does your brain ever make things up? Things that aren't real? Or— or things that you— things that you're just making up?"

"I don't—"

"Do you ever remember things that didn't happen?"

"Jon—"

"I think my mind is going wrong again," he whispered hoarsely and when he would have jumped up and fled, Jamie caught his arm quickly, half-dragged to his feet before he managed to dig in his heels, pulling them both to an abrupt and shaky stop, locking both arms around Jon's and pulling him backwards, to where he could study him, take in the uneasy signs of whatever was brewing in Jonathon, what he had been picking up on but dismissing as senseless worry. "I won't let you go crazy— it's okay—"

"No, it's not— no, I think—"

"It's okay."

"No, it isn't."

He was aware of Jonathon's breathing, shallow and frightened and it was terrifying, that a man capable of the things he was capable of, could be so terrified of anything or anyone, could still be so badly thrown off by the mere mention of people long dead and buried, and who had made sure that they would never leave their kids even in death. "Jon, it's okay."

"Erin wouldn't lie to me—"

Jamie didn't understand where the sudden panic was coming from, and he was grateful for it, setting his hands on Jon's shoulders and holding him as loosely as he could without losing any grip at all. "It's okay, Jonathon, I swear." He hesitated, thinking about how stupid it was to say such things to someone like Jonathon Lavery, and not able to say anything else. "You need to calm down, seriously, okay?"

"Okay—"

And then there was that stillness again and he awkwardly kept his hold on the other man, afraid that if he let go, Jon really would fall, and that they would lose him, for good this time, that there would be nothing left to heal after it was all over. "Maybe we should go," he finally sighed, and Jon nodded, turning away and heading to the window, looking somehow calmer as he climbed out of the empty office.

And Jamie followed, without hesitation.


	5. Chapter 5

**May 2007**

-

_He wasn't strong enough, and the sobbing broke him finally._

Standing for a few minutes in the doorway, he watches her, a bent shape on the bed, making deep noises as if she's dying, like she always does when she drinks too much of the stuff, when she goes from mean to… something else. If he was smart, he'd leave, climb back upstairs before she knows he's there, but he's not strong enough—and eventually, he drifts in, nervous steps carrying him forward.

"Do you need anything?" he finally asks, and she twists, staring at him with bloodshot eyes and a pale face, pulling the bottle against her stomach. There's no one else around and that alone makes his stomach twist into knots, make him feel ill as he works not to take a step back as she stares at him, still shaking.

"Come here," she finally sighs raggedly, and if he wasn't so desperate to have comfort, he would have fled right then, knowing what was coming, aware of it. But he moves forward, despite himself, and she catches his wrist, tugging him the last several steps. "Come here, and spend some time with me, Jonny…"

"Mom—"

"Don't call me that," she snaps, fingers tightening around his wrist, and he nods immediately, furiously, trying to get her hold to loosen, even knowing that it wouldn't. "I'm not your fucking mommy, you got it?" A finger snaps into his face, and she's forgotten the bottle, all of her attention on him, darkly lit eyes staring at him. "You and Pat, I swear to God, breathing down my neck every time I turn around."

"I'm just worried about you—"

"Yeah, I bet…" Fingers locked tight, she tugs him closer, shifting onto one hip as she drags him down to the bed with her, sending him sprawling on the mattress as she locked her other arm around him, exhaling into his neck as she curled up around him. "You're as bad as your sister… whine, whine, whine…"

"I don't want— I can go get you something—" he blurted out, heart thudding painfully in his suddenly tight chest, but she tightened her hold, fingers digging into his skin, raising her head from his neck to stare down at him, worn face twisting slightly, pressing him back more into the bed. "Mom—"

"Stop calling me that."

-

"I really think I should call Jo."

"I'm fine."

Jonathon didn't look fine— pale, shaking, eyes wide and frightened, he didn't look any better than he had looked when Jamie had finally managed to wake him up out of the nightmare he'd been drowning in when Jamie got home, hearing the hoarse screams through the door as he struggled to get the keys in the lock.

He'd finally been forced to drag Jon out of the bed thrashing and yelling and toss him in the tub, turning the cold water on full blast, not knowing what the hell else to do. Jon had nightmares before, loud things he got caught in, but he was disturbingly good at waking himself up before they got too bad.

This one was different.

"I think we should call Jo."

"I'm fine," Jonathon gritted out from his seat on the couch and Jamie squirmed, looking through the cabinets for something to make for him. But his ability to cook was sadly lacking—Jon's trip to the emergency room after trying Jamie's first attempt at meatloaf was evidence of that—and he finally was forced to grab a packet of tea and put on hot water, hoping that tea would fix things.

Mom always said it did.

Or had that been hot chocolate?

He didn't know, but didn't let himself fret about it, watching it steep with worried brown eyes that kept darting towards Jonathon, looking very young with his legs tucked up beneath him and a blanket wrapped around him, hair still wet from his rude awakening by cold shower. "You don't look fine."

"Go to bed, leave me alone… I want to be alone…"

"You like honey in your tea, right?"

"I want coffee."

"I don't think you need any caffeine right now—"

"I know what I need—"

"Unless it includes calling Jo, I really don't give a fuck what you think you need," Jamie snipped back heatedly, suddenly angry and not sure why. Ignoring the murderous look Jonathon shot him, he stirred in what he thought would be the right amount of honey and grabbed it, shoving the papers on the coffee table to the side to drop down on the edge, facing the couch as he held up the mug. "Drink it."

"I don't need it."

"Mom always said something hot to drink would help things."

"I don't need anything from your mother—"

"Drink the fucking tea, Jon!"

The anger took them both by surprise, and Jon stared at him with wide eyes, mouth slightly open in shock as Jamie blanched and then blushed, not knowing where the yell had come from. Another moment of silence before fingers caught the handle, jerking the mug away and, with a dirty look, Jon tipped it back, swallowing the steaming liquid like a petulant child. "Better?" he finally snapped, slamming it back into Jamie's hands.

"Yes."

Jon gave him a glare, unfolding his legs and leaning forward, scowling as he rubbed his face with a trembling hand. "I'm feeling better now, you can go on to bed." Jamie snorted, but Jon only nodded more furiously, starting to look vaguely desperate. "Really, I'm fine, better than fine, like… like, fine with a cherry on top, okay?"

"You're still shaking."

"That doesn't mean anything."

"You're freaked out about something… what kind of nightmare was it?"

"Stop—"

"If I have to beat you over the head and drag you to hospital, I swear to God I will."

Jonathon gave him a disgruntled look, that desperate glint in the back of his gaze becoming more overwhelming as he began to bite one thumbnail, and Jamie winced, grabbing Jonathon's wrist and tugging it down quickly, irrationally hating the sight of the grown man biting his fingers like a child.

Knowing that it was bad when he started acting like this…

"Jon—"

"I thought— I hoped that I was making it up or… or something…"

"Making what up?"

Jon just shook his head and raised his hand to his mouth again, beginning to bite the skin and, with an explosive sigh, Jamie grabbed both hands, gripping them tightly, staring down at them unhappily, studying them intently, hard. They're rough, rougher than his own, calloused and scarred, harsh as Jonathon was.

He dropped them suddenly, feeling burned, and not sure why.

"You look like you just saw a ghost."

"It's nothing," Jamie muttered more courageously than he really felt, shifting on the table, leaning forward and then back, suddenly aware of how comfortable he felt in the current position, sitting in front of a three-time murderer with bad nails and rough hands that were trembling too hard. "I'm just worried."

"I can handle myself."

"Not well, as evidenced by your criminal record."

"Don't forget your record."

"You're trying to throw me off."

"No, I'm trying to piss you off."

"Same thing, and it isn't going to work."

"You don't want to know—"

"If it'll help you, I want to know."

Jonathon gave a short brittle laugh, shaking his head. "Ryan said the same thing to me, once, and that was a lie…. I started to tell him things, just a few things, and he couldn't handle it, didn't want to listen." He shifted, glanced at Jamie oddly. "I know when Erin says it, she means it… she listens, she makes herself listen."

"Tell me, anything, I'll do the same thing—"

"I don't want you to know, I don't—" His voice broke, and so did Jamie's heart, an alarming flare of pain igniting in his chest as he let out a sudden hiss of breath, spine straightening. "I don't want you to be like me and Erin, don't you get it? I can't be around another person like us, somebody who looks at me and sees what I— sees—"

"I'm trying to help—"

"I don't want you to know—" And he stopped, abruptly, stock still and wide eyed, as if he could see his death on horizon and was grateful for it, trembling with the relief that it was finally coming, that his prayers had finally been answered, and it twisted whatever was left of Jamie's heart, worn down with worry for the dead-eyed man in front of him, remembering the choking sensation as he wrestled with the lock, the shrieks inside hurting him more than they should have been able to. "Everything's going to be fine…"

In hindsight, he had no idea, exactly, how it happened—one second they were staring at each other and Jonathon was looking… strange was the best word for it, and the only thing Jamie could think of was that he needed to stand up and break eye contact because he had no idea what was about to happen but he did at the same time and—

It was harder, he later decided as he stared dumbly at the soda machine in the hospital still dazed and dizzy from it and waiting for his mother to walk in, _knowing what had happened_, and it was better than anything he'd felt. It was rough, and he shuddered when hands clawed, caught at him, clinging to him with something he didn't understand but savored anyway, and, okay, Jonathon needed to shave because he had enough stubble to cause a bit of pain there—

It all changed suddenly, but it didn't, and his hands searched and finally found something to hold onto, the blanket Jon's wrapped up in, and he gripped it with trembling hands, the pulse in his ears making his skull buzz with a terrified sort of wordless excitement. "James—" It was barely a word, not much more than a muffled groan into his mouth and he ignored it, feeling more frenzied with that excitement.

And then, with something that could only be described as a shriek, the body he was clinging to threw him backwards, knocking whatever breath he had left in his body out of his lungs and into oddly cold-feeling air as he toppled backward off the coffee table. By the time the haze eased and he could breath without shuddering, Jon was on his feet, half-shouting words he didn't understand even as he fled the apartment, grabbing his jacket as he went, leaving Jamie to sprawl on the floor, not sure if he wanted to hide or follow.

The heat was still there, but not blinding anymore and he gulped in air, shaking, not even trying to get to his feet. He wasn't shaking with horror—it's something he knows with a scary certainty but he wasn't calm, because his nerves were jumping and his heart was pounding and he wasn't able to fill his lungs without tasting—

It sank in, finally, and he gaped at the empty spot where the other man had been moments before, the understanding slowly sinking into his skull and settling. He had just kissed Jonathon. Jonathon. Mentally unstable Jonathon. Emotionally damaged Jonathon. Jonathon the murderer, the guy who had hit Maggie, the guy who'd killed the guy who, at one time, would have been his step-father.

He had kissed—

"Oh, shit."


	6. Chapter 6

**May 2007**

-

It was awkward, feeling awkward around Jonathon.

At some point in the last year, he had come to depend on the other man, damaged as he was, depend on him being there with his teasing and his amusement at the younger man's expense. His visits to his father were getting rare, it was hard for him to force himself into that hospital room since he was sure his father would never leave.

If he hadn't woken up by now…

"Where's the butter?"

"On the bottom shelf."

Jon shot him a sharp look, and grabbed it, slamming the fridge door shut and dropping the container to the counter, once again shifting into what Jamie now considered his 'ignore Jamie Martin' mode. Jamie firmly believed that he could walk over and throw a pan of boiling water in his face and Jon wouldn't bat an eye at him.

That couldn't be healthy, right?

Painful, too, when you were the one being ignored… not that he minded being ignored, or anything.

He shifted on the couch, turning his attention back to the cartoons playing in front of him, wishing something would crash through the wall and break the ever-increasing sense of wrongness filling the apartment. Spongebob wasn't helping, which only left him feeling more flustered. After the shooting, after his father had slipped into the coma, he'd come to depend on the grating giggles and dorky jokes to keep his feet on the ground.

Needed humor to help keep his heart from drowning in what he wasn't prepared for.

Jonathon had helped with the feet and ground predicament as well; seeing as how he apparently no longer existed for Jonathon, he only had Spongebob to fall back on. Spongebob, to his great frustration, was failing. Getting into an argument with Anita about whether or not Spongebob was gay—and for the life of him, he didn't understand how the argument had started in the first place—also had failed to help his increasingly confused mood.

Feeling eyes on him, he glanced to the right and met a sudden 'hand in the cookie jar' look of horror on Jon's face before he dropped his head again, jumping in surprise when the butter knife went flying out of his hand and skittering off the counter. "Got butter on the damn handle," he muttered in Jamie's vague direction, and yanked open the drawer to grab another one.

Weird, and wrong, and not what Jamie had expected to deal with.

There had been none of this with Babe, nothing that even came close to this level of… something, a confusing mix of worry and excitement and outright confusion that left him blinking at the wall and waiting for the answer to come to him in a blast of pure white light and Handel in the background.

Jon was weird, and confusing, and wrong in every sense.

Somehow, it didn't help matters any for the confused Martin.

All it made him want to do was dig in his heels stubbornly and brace himself for whatever was coming, and the feeling didn't come with the sense of righteousness that his relationship with Babe had brought, a powerful feeling that everything he was doing was right, because he was doing it for Babe, and that made it right.

That wasn't here, and he was waiting for it to kick in, so he could figure out to deal with it.

Instead, he was terrified, fumbling and confused, knowing just how wrong it was, and not just in the 'I wish I knew how to quit you' kind of ever-increasingly cliché scene. Jonathon had hit Maggie, _he'd hit her_, he'd broken her down while Jamie was off running around with Babe and didn't that say something about him, about just how worthy he was to speak to Maggie again?

Maggie, with her root beer floats and terribly hurt little heart, forever waiting for Bianca to realize she wasn't Frankie, to take Miranda and herself far away and never return and take Maggie's heart right along with her because Bianca had it, had in the palm of her hand, and didn't realize it, even though she desperately wanted to.

Jon had killed Edmund, he'd gone all crazy and killed people, almost killed countless others.

And, he'd never felt closer to anyone in his life, outside of his family.

Jamie was waiting for the men in the white coats to come in and get him, take him away and fix whatever was off in his freaky brain because, clearly, he wasn't thinking right. He was clearly thinking wrong, very wrong, as evidenced by that thing that had happened that he had yet to tell anyone about and Jon had yet to acknowledge.

Yes, that… thing that had happened.

"You know, I'm hungry, too—"

"You have legs, and you can pull a door open," Jonathon snapped, smearing more butter than could possibly be needed across a piece of toast, and the red mark from where he had fallen asleep on the couch the night before was still across his cheek, despite the fact that he had hastily left the couch and his channel surfing when Jamie stumbled out of his room with his usual grace, smacking two doorframes before finally reaching the coffee waiting for him on the counter. "Make your own damn breakfast."

"But I don't want to die."

A few days before, Jon would have smirked, made some particularly digging comments and taken pity on him—but then, a few days before, he wouldn't have been using up all of the butter in an attempt to avoid eye contact with the younger man, and he wouldn't have been dropping knives all over the place and blaming said butter.

Now, Jon gave a short shrug and added dryly, "You have friends in hospital places, you can get your stomach pumped real quick if need be." This so stated, he once again shifted into his 'ignore Jamie Martin at all costs' mode, finally snapping the lid on the butter and dropping it quickly back into the fridge, slamming the door and snapping over his shoulder, "The butter goes in the door, James, not the bottom of the fridge."

"Sorry.

"Yeah, I bet."

Jamie wondered what, exactly, he was actually apologizing for.


End file.
